


Technicolor Pachyderms

by Titch360



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titch360/pseuds/Titch360
Summary: The only thing better than receiving an unexpected gift is getting one you can put to good use.





	

Technicolor Pachyderms

 

“Hey, Grayson, this came for you in the mail.”

Dick’s head turned in the direction of the open doorway of the front sitting room as Damian walked in and Frisbee’d a small cardboard box at him.  He caught it deftly with one hand as he smiled at his youngest brother.

“The mail came, huh?  Neither rain nor sleet, I guess.”

Dick’s comment caused Damian to glance towards the bay window, currently showing a winter wonderland playing out on the front lawn.  Winter came early to Gotham City this year, with the first snowfall happening a week before Halloween.  Now, a week before Christmas, nightly snowfalls were as common as high heating bills.  Last night’s occurrence brought six inches of fresh powder to the foothills around the city.  With a promise of at least another inch tonight, the family was pretty happy that they had nowhere to go.

Damian smirked as he recognized the beginning of the Mail Carrier’s Creed.  “As a former mailman myself, I must defend the hardworking letter carrier.  They get their job done because it has to be done.”

Dick matched the smirk and said sarcastically, “Yeah, because there were so many snowdrifts on the executive levels of Wayne Tower this summer.  Listen to you, sticking up for the working man.  Talia would be apoplectic.”

“I take that as a compliment.”  Anything Damian could do to piss off his former mother was a good thing in his book.  He no longer saw any reason to be concerned about her thoughts.  In fact, this may have been the first time he heard her name without some sort of anger springing to mind.

Dick looked at the boy and asked, “So, you finally decided to come out of your room?”

Damian rolled his eyes, “I’m not hiding, Grayson.  I have homework.”

“It’s Christmas vacation, Little D.  You have the whole rest of the school year to do homework.”

Damian leaned against the door frame, “Did you forget the part where I’m trying to graduate early?  If I want to stay on track, I have to finish at least six work packets before the end of break.”

Dick’s eyes widened, “Six?  I thought your guidance counselor said four?”

Bruce and Damian had attended a meeting with Damian’s guidance counselor at the Warrington School the week before break had started, for an update on Damian’s progress towards graduation.  The boy spent a lot of time in his room since the beginning of the school year, and Bruce wanted to make sure that his grades were still passing muster.  The counselor had asked Bruce to try to talk Damian into slowing down on his work load.  Taking junior and senior honors courses simultaneously in one year was no small feat.  To do it while Damian technically should have still been a freshman was unheard of.  Bruce was only allowing Damian to continue with the experiment because the counselor reported that all of his grades so far placed him among the top students in the school.  In fact, Tim had achieved the highest grade point average the school had yet to see, and Damian was coming close to matching that achievement.  He wasn’t quite there, but he had a shot of coming close to his older brother’s performance.

Since Damian was not going to shy away from the task; he set a goal and he wouldn’t stop until he met it; and Bruce was still agreeing with continuing, the guidance counselor had no choice but to allow Damian to continue, and had given the next set of work packets.  Damian had a pile of work on his desk that had pushed aside the normal stack of drawings.  Bruce joked that Damian had more paperwork in trying to graduate from high school than he did in trying to run Wayne Enterprises.  The counselor had given Damian twelve new packets, to take him through the end of January.  He had suggested that four of them be finished before Damian returned to school, after the holidays, and had begged the boy to relax a little.  If Damian was looking to finish half of his new work, Dick had a good idea that Damian had no intention of resting.

Shaking his head and changing the subject, Dick said, “I wonder why Alfred went to get the mail so early.  It must be twenty below outside.  He should have waited until this afternoon, the temperature is supposed to get back above zero by then.”

“Tt, Pennyworth didn’t pick up the mail.  I needed a break, and some fresh air, so I went.”

Dick smiled at the boy.  “That was nice of you.  How was your hike?”

Damian gave Dick an incredulous look, “Are you dense, Grayson?  It’s twenty below out there, there is a foot of snow on the ground, and it’s a half mile to the perimeter fence and the mailbox.  I wanted fresh air, not hypothermia.  I took my snowmobile.”

“You should have told me you were going.  I would have ridden out with you.”

Dick remembered the youth’s twelfth birthday present from Bruce, an item that had seen far less use than the other items the boy had received for his previous birthday, mostly due to unusually warm weather over the past year, and partly due to Damian spending the previous winter months either under cover or injured.  With this year’s early snowfall, Dick had made sure to plan several occasions where they could take out the family’s matched set of snowmobiles.

Damian looked down, “I don’t have the time to take the kind of ride you would have turned the trip into.  I need to get back to work as it is.”

“Damian, seriously, it’s Saturday.  You can take more time away from studying than just a quick trip to the mailbox and back.  The least you can do is watch me open my box.”

Damian cocked his head curiously, “Why, what did you get?”

Dick looked at the box in his hand and said, “Actually, I don’t know.  I didn’t order anything recently.  Maybe I should wait until Christmas to open it?  It might be an early Christmas present.”

“Do you really want to wait five more days to see what is in there,” the boy asked.

Dick shrugged, looking at the Amazon labels on the box, “Not really, but I seriously don’t know what this is.  I didn’t order anything.”

Damian smirked, “There is a way to find out what it is, you know.”

Dick smiled, “You want to know what it is just as much as I do, don’t you?”

“Tt.  Whatever, Grayson.”

Dick looked between the box and his brother, a slow grin lighting up his eyes.  He said softly, “Damian, did you get me a present?  Now I really do want to wait for Christmas.”

Damian hid any tells from Dick expertly, “Of course I didn’t get you a present.  How would I have ordered something from Amazon?  Father doesn’t let me have a credit card, remember?”

Dick’s smile grew, “There are ways around that.  I know you are resourceful enough to come up with something on your own.  Just because you didn’t pay for it doesn’t mean you didn’t purchase it.”

“Do you know how foolish that sounds?”

“This coming from the boy who embezzled ten grand from the League of Assassins to buy our brother a birthday present?”

This time, Damian’s cheeks did catch a hint of a blush.  “I should have drained the whole account while I was at it.  If I’d known how Talia would treat me after that, I would have bankrupted them.”

Dick shook his head, “You couldn’t have known she would flip out like that.”

“Actually,” Damian said seriously, “I should have.  It _is_ Talia, after all.  So, are you going to open it, or not?  I have work to do.”

A delighted grin took over Dick’s face, “This is turning into the Pulp Fiction box here.  Everyone wants it and no one knows what’s inside.”

Damian smirked at the reference.  “Okay, but if you open it and it starts glowing, I’m going to run.  With our luck, the only glowing thing someone would send us is Uranium.”

Dick put the box down, “Are you too good to get irradiated with the rest of the family?”

“Cancer is not on my holiday wish list this year,” Damian deadpanned.

Dick shook his head, “Not on mine, either.  I just wish I knew who sent this before opening it.”

“It’s probably from Drake, or Father, or you bought something and forgot about it.  Maybe you preordered something, and it finally became available.”

The tearing of cardboard was the only response to Damian’s supposition as Dick ripped into the box.  He looked at the item with mixed confusion and a hint of appreciation.  “Huh.”

“What is it?”

Dick withdrew a plastic case from the box and held it up.  “It’s Dumbo on Blu-ray.”

Damian looked at it strangely, “I thought you already had all of the Disney movies?”

Dick shook his head, “I have a lot of them.  Don’t have this one, though.  Can’t say that I ever saw this one.”  Dick sighed as a soft smile came to his face, “When I was eleven, Bruce told me about this movie.”

Damian rolled his eyes again, “Are you going to tell me about that trip to Disneyland _again_?  I’ve heard the whole story ten times.”

Dick looked at Damian seriously, “Hey, that trip was the inspiration for our trip to Disney World this summer; a trip that I remember you enjoyed greatly.  I have a lot of really good memories of that time with Bruce and Alfred.  Bruce said he would watch this one with me one day; we never got around to it.”

Damian seemed to deflate a bit at that, “Oh.  Would you like me to get Father, then?  He probably remembered his promise and ordered that for the both of you.”

Dick stood and approached the boy, who was still leaning on the door frame, “No, that’s okay.  I _would_ like you to watch it with me, though.  I know that you want to get back to your homework, but you can take an hour and a half or so and watch it with me, right?”

“Are you going to pout if I say no?”

“I might, since I know it works on you just as well as it does on Bruce,” Dick said lightly.

Damian sighed heavily, like he was making a great sacrifice, “Fine, let’s get this over with.”

Dick smiled brightly, “Love you too, little brother.”

They walked to the den, and as Dick was tearing open the packaging and starting the disc, Damian pulled out a couple blankets and set them on the couch.  He pulled the coffee table closer to the couch, so they could put their feet up, and sat down to wait.

Dick turned and smiled at the preparations.  “You wanted to see this, too, didn’t you?”

“You would have done this before starting the movie, anyway.  This just saves us a couple minutes, so I can get back to my homework sooner.”

“Sure, Little D,” Dick said with a smirk.

Dick sat on the couch and threw a blanket over the both of them.  He slid one arm over the back of the couch while pressing the play button on the remote with his other hand.  “It’s cold in here today,” Dick commented.

“Father must have turned down the heat down here.  We have a house full of blankets, we don’t need to be heating rooms that we rarely, if ever, use.”

The previews played on the disc.  Damian rolled his eyes, knowing better than to demand that Dick fast-forward through them for the sake of saving time.  Damian learned long ago that Dick liked the previews, and it would only upset the man if he weren’t allowed to watch them.

By the time the previews had finished and the feature started, Damian had inched closer to his big brother, and was just an inch away from laying his head on Dick’s shoulder.  Dick had spent enough time with his younger brother to know that this was a sign indicating that Damian was not as averse to the activity as he let on.  In fact, if Dick was judging the timing correctly, it was quite possible that Damian wanted to do this just as much as Dick did.

Damian would always get close, but he relied on Dick to make the final move, so that he could say that he was just obliging his brother.  Even after three years, and the great leaps and bounds Damian had advanced over the angry boy who was left with complete strangers by an ultimately uncaring mother, there were still some aspects of his personality that hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t, change.  They both knew how he felt; he didn’t have to say it for it to be known.

The usual grumble that came when Dick wrapped his arm around Damian’s shoulders and pulled the boy in to lay his head on Dick’s shoulder came out as a contented murmur this time.  That more than anything should have told Dick that something more than a movie with his youngest brother was happening.

“Huh, I guess Bruce wasn’t kidding.  Dumbo _was_ brought by the stork.  I always thought Bruce was just trying to describe it nicely, not accurately.”

A hidden smile played on Damian’s lips.  “It’s a circus with more elephants than people, and _that’s_ what you notice?”

Dick patted Damian’s shoulder lightly, “Okay, how about I notice that they drew the momma elephant with blue eyes?”

Damian’s head turned slightly on Dick’s shoulder.  “What color are real elephant’s eyes,” Damian asked softly.

Dick looked wistful.  “That depends on the lighting.  In daylight, they are mostly brown.  Sometimes, they get this really pretty copper color.  Some will lean more towards red than brown.  I’ve never heard of a blue-eyed elephant, though.”

“Hmm,” Damian filed away the information while giving his father’s standard response, which brought a grin to Dick’s face.

The grin stayed on Dick’s face as Mrs. Jumbo and Jumbo, Jr. bonded.  Damian took quick glances up at his brother, and seemed to relax a bit more in seeing his brother happy.

“Are…are elephants really that social?  The animators drew them looking like a community.”

Dick squeezed Damian’s shoulder as the animated elephants cooed over the new arrival.  “They actually are.  They have families, just like people do.  Momma elephants are very protective of their kids.”

Damian lifted his head from Dick’s shoulder, catching the man’s attention.  “Don’t call her that,” Damian said quietly.

“Call who what?”

“The mother elephant.  Don’t call her ‘momma’.  Her name is Mrs. Jumbo.”

Dick cocked his head and looked at the boy strangely.  “Where did that come from?”

Damian sighed and looked away, “Just don’t do it, okay?”

Confused at the sudden change in atmosphere, Dick persisted, “Why does that bother you?”

The boy’s voice was barely above a mumble as he said, “You’re comparing yourself to Dumbo.  You told me once that you used to call your mother ‘momma’.  It’s just going to make it harder on you if something happens to her.”

Dick blossomed a full smile, “And you’re just looking out for my trigger warnings?”

“I’ve watched movies with you before, Grayson.  The more invested you get with the characters, the more you are eventually going to cry on me.”

A sneeze on screen caught both of their attention, and the brothers giggled as Dumbo’s ears flopped around his head.  As the other elephants began making fun of his ears, Dick said, “Well, that’s not nice.  At least momma still loves him, though.”

“What did I tell you about that, Grayson?”

“I can’t help it.  You should know that by now.”

Damian rolled his eyes as Dick sat up a little bit and whispered, “Oh, boy.  The opening day of the circus.”

The crowds poured into the circus tent, everyone intent on seeing the main attraction of the show, the elephants.  Little Dumbo, unaware of the evils of the world, wanted to see what all the commotion was about.  That was when his ears were noticed and picked out as an abnormality.  One boy, who was blessed with inordinately large ears himself, was laughing and pulling on Dumbo’s ears.

“No, don’t do that, you little bully,” Dick mumbled.

_Oh, great.  Here he goes_.  Damian noticed that the arm around his shoulders had tightened, and he was being pulled closer to Dick.  On screen, Mrs. Jumbo had noticed what was being done to her little baby, and took it upon herself to teach the bully a lesson.

A grim smirk crossed Dick’s face, “Yeah, give him what he has coming…NO!”

The onscreen ringmaster was cracking a whip in Mrs. Jumbo’s face as he ordered his roustabouts to tie down the elephant.”

“Calm down, momma.  It’s okay, just calm down.”

Damian couldn’t remember ever hearing Dick sound more like a lost little boy.  _He’s not taking this well.  Maybe I should stop the movie_ , Damian thought.  He couldn’t move to reach the remote, though.  Dick had wrapped Damian in both arms, and from the way the man was sniffling, the boy could tell that it would be a while before he was let loose.

“They took her away.  They took her away.  She wasn’t mad, she was just upset that people were being mean to her baby.  That’s no reason to lock her up.”

Damian did his best to stop the sigh from escaping his mouth as a hand forced his head against Dick’s chest.  Dick lowered his face to the boy’s hair, fat tears splattering on straight black locks.

“It’s just a movie, Grayson,” the youth whispered.

Dick sniffled, his voice muffled by Damian’s hair.  “Yeah, but they’re crying.  I’ve seen elephants cry before.  There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing an elephant cry.  They don’t deserve this.”

Dick wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t notice when Damian’s hand slid across his stomach to tighten in a hug around his waist.  Despite his tears, he smiled that the youth was trying to comfort him.

Dick paused the movie for a minute as he composed himself.  Like almost all of these moments between these two brothers, no words were passed.  When he was ready again, Dick hit play to continue the movie.

A minute later, Damian snorted, “Timothy Mouse?  Is that why Drake bought this?”

“ _Did_ Timmy get this for me?”

Damian’s eyes widened, unseen by Dick.  “Well, didn’t we narrow it down to either Drake or Father?”

“Yeah,” _I’m not so sure, anymore, though._

“Um, are elephants really scared of mice?  I would think they could just step on it.”

Dick smirked, “Oh, yeah.  You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a pachyderm shimmy up the center pole.  This animation doesn’t do it justice.”

There was a smile on the boy’s face, but Dick’s tone of voice left just enough of a question in Damian’s mind.  “I know you’re joking, but…”

Dick ruffled the boy’s hair.  “It isn’t the mouse, it’s seeing something dart across their field of vision.  Elephants don’t have the best eyesight, and seeing something small, like a mouse, running in front of them, is surprising.  They have a very well-honed sense of self-preservation.”

“Oh.  Wait, they have good memories, right?  How do they do that with poor eyesight?”

Dick gave a small smile, “Scent memory.  And, they can still see.  It isn’t the best eyesight, but they don’t qualify for a white cane, either.”

Damian nodded, “So, the mouse is going to help the elephant?”

“Looks like it.  Wow, that’s impressive.”

The brothers watched as the circus elephants climbed on top of one another in a giant pyramid.  Along came Dumbo, who, while approaching the pyramid of pachyderms, tripped over his ears and knocked the whole thing over, collapsing the tent in the process.

“Ooh, that must have hurt,” Dick said.

The next scene showed the elephants tending to their wounds.  Dumbo was dressed up as a clown for the next act, and Dick winced, “That’s embarrassing.”

“I think that is _supposed_ to be embarrassing.  Why do clowns even exist?  They just lead to things like the Joker.  They aren’t even that funny.”

“Unfortunately, yes.  I don’t know why they exist.  Having met the people who play them, though, just remember that they are people under the make-up.”

Dumbo and Timothy were currently trying to cure the elephant’s hiccups, causing the young elephant to get drunk when he was fed an unknown mixture of water and alcohol.

“What…the…hell…” Damian asked slowly as the famous Pink Elephants scene played out on screen.

Dick opened his mouth to reply, to defend a movie he had never seen before, but changed his line of thought.  “You know what?  I’m with you.  What the hell is this?  Why are there drunk elephants on screen in a Disney movie?”

“I told you he was a strange person.”

Dick smirked, “Yes, a strange person, but not an alien.”

Damian rolled his eyes, “You aren’t going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Not so long as it gets a rise out of you,” Dick laughed.

“Are you sure this is a children’s movie, Grayson?  That was a bit creepy,” Damian said with a yawn.

“Last I checked, it was.”

The scene ended and Dumbo and Timothy found themselves talking with a group of crows.  Timothy told them Dumbo’s tragic story so far, and the crows offered their help.

Dick said with a smile, “Heh, that one’s named Jim Crow.  That was probably a lot funnier in the forties than it is now, though.”

There was no response from the head laying on his chest.  Dick looked down to see Damian’s eyes closed and his breathing deep and even.  A light snore every now and then, and the fact that Damian’s grip around his waist had tightened, convinced Dick that the boy was asleep.

_He’s been putting in some long hours, what with school work and patrol.  I hope he doesn’t expect me to wake him up, because I’m not going to.  Little D obviously needs the rest.  We have the movie now, I can just watch it again with him at another time._

“Hey, there you are.”

Tim walked into the den as Dick looked over and put a finger to his lips, encouraging quiet from his brother.  Tim looked at the sleeping boy, curled under the blanket next to their big brother.  He took an armchair next to the couch and spoke quietly.

“It never ceases to amaze me how peaceful and innocent he looks when he’s sleeping.  You would never know he had lived any of the horrors he has.  I see your movie came.”

Dick smiled and said, “Apparently it did.  Thanks, Timmy.”

Tim shrugged, “Don’t thank me, I just ordered it.”

Dick regarded the younger man, “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?  He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Tim took another look at the sleeping teen and said, “If he didn’t tell you, then he probably doesn’t want it getting around…so I’ll tell you.  Damian came barging into my room the other day and stated that he had found out something that confused him.  He read about this movie, Dumbo, and realized that, not only did you not have a copy of it, but that you’d never seen it.”

Dick looked confused, “Wait, how did he know that I didn’t have it already?”

Tim smirked, “You’re seriously asking that?  Remember who we’re talking about, here.”

Dick sighed, “Right, he went and checked.  I should have known that.”

Tim nodded, “Anyway, he demanded I order a copy for you, then went on to say that if I didn’t pick one-day shipping, he would slash my tires.  He gave me cash right on the spot, to cover the full cost, plus shipping, plus a bit extra as an apology.”

The smile wouldn’t leave Dick’s face at hearing the explanation.  _I knew he knew more than he was letting on._   “He really did all of that, just for me?”

Tim smirked, “You are just about the only one he _would_ do something like that for.  Are you sure he’s asleep?”

It was a valid question.  Damian was a light sleeper, and had a tendency to pretend to be asleep in order to hear other’s conversations.  Dick, however, had found a surefire method to tell when Damian was faking.  He leaned over and whispered, “Robin’s here,” in the boy’s ear.

Damian didn’t move, or respond in any way.  Dick turned back to Tim and said, “He’s out.”

Tim nodded, “Well, I won’t bother you, then.  You know how possessive he gets.”

Feeling the thin, strong arm around his waist, Dick could hardly argue.  “No, stay Tim.  Watch the rest of the movie with me.  I don’t think he’ll mind, if it’s you.”

Tim smiled and nodded, settling back into the chair as Dumbo practiced flying around the screen.  A hand reached over and grabbed Tim’s forearm.  He looked over to see Dick smiling at him.  He returned the smile and patted the hand as it rested on his arm.

Dumbo got his mother back, and the movie ended on a happy note.  The flying elephant was almost as happy as Dick was, having his brothers around him.  If this could continue, then it would be a good winter break indeed.

Tim left soon after the movie was over.  He wanted to make sure that the last of his Christmas preparations were completed.  Dick turned the TV off and just watched the youth at his side.

Several minutes later, Damian awoke with a snort.  Blearily, he asked, “Did Dumbo get his mother back?”

“Yeah, Little D, he did.  Not only that, but he learned how to fly, and became the hero of the circus.”

The youth snuggled his head into Dick’s chest as he dug an arm under Dick’s back, to be able to hold on with both arms.  Holding on tightly to the comforting presence of his eldest brother, Damian closed his eyes and murmured, “Good.”

A content smile on his face, Dick pulled the blanket up to the boy’s chin and closed his eyes, to join Damian in a long winter’s nap.

 

**A/N:  There’s a short little holiday piece.  I had hoped to get this up before Christmas, but Art of the Con took a little longer to get out than I thought.  This was a requested piece from reader EST891.  Thanks for the suggestion.  If anyone else has suggestions, I will gladly consider them.  Please put any requests in the comments for the work Timeline, and if they speak to me, I will write them up.**

**Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I’ll see you all in 2017.**


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